12. For Everything that is 'Nice'

In the last few days i have been to night markets, parks, mountains, sanctuaries, and i have encountered a lot of 'nice' things. You may ask, what is 'nice'? 'Nice' is something you see, or hear, or feel, or sense, which puts a smile to your face and a touch to your heart. And the result of that has you saying: "hmmm....how nice....."

On a visit to a famouse national park, i came across some geese walking along a concrete walkpath in the middle of the man-made lake. I decided to follow them along the path, since they were the only animals in the park. Waddle waddle we go along the path, until i realised that they were easing away from me. Here's something i found about geese. They calculate your momentum when you approach them. Because they value their own weight as large, as they are quite hard to budge even one on one with a person, they will study your speed of approach. If it is not too high, then they will feel very safe. I also felt very safe around them.

The old grandma next to me was saying to her granddaughter (or daughter, i couldn't tell): "Xiao xin, ta hui yao ren de! (Be careful it bites!)", but i didn't believe her. I gave the geese my finger, and after a few 'waaagn's, one bit me on the hand. The sensation was surprising yet calm. I do not recall the feeling but i could be sure that it did not hurt - because geese do not have teeth. When you pull up the skin of covering a dog's upper jaws, you reveal its fierce snarling teeth. And you say, impossible(!), how can something so innocent turn into something so nasty in just one hand movement? Try putting those teeth on a goose. When you lifted up its beak sides, did it surprise you?

The little girl in the picture seemed to be scared of the geese. But at the same time, by the encouragement of her mum and her want to play with the only animals in the park before it gets dark, she had no choice. In the picture, it may seem like she's turning around to say a caring goodbye to the geese, but in reality, out of her shyness, she was actually inching herself towards the pack very slowly - backwards! How nice...


Once she was close enough, her grandma decided to take a photo of her with a statue in the background. This was the way in taiwan. When you reach a certain destination you must take a photo of 'evidence' to show all your friends and relatives that you have been to a particular place. For example, when a tourist climbs a mountain, he doesn't necessarily take a photo with the surrounding landscapes, but he takes one with the plaque on the rock which says: "mount ali national park". It just lets me wonder what that photo the grandma took of her granddaughter at the same time i captured my photo, would look like. How i would give to see the awesome lakeside background, everything before that as well as an innocent, content smile, that would put a smile on my face and give a touch to my heart.